PESHAWAR: President Dr Arif Alvi said on Friday that internet had the potential to employ all youths of Pakistan and they should avail of this opportunity.

He said this while speaking through video link to participants of the opening ceremony of two-day Digital Youth Summit (DYS) 2021 tech conference here. Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Minister for Science and Information Technology Mohammad Atif Khan opened the conference.

Dr Alvi highlighted the importance of digital technologies and how they were changing the world. He said that internet companies had replaced the oil and natural resources companies’ dominance of the world.

The president said that ad money which traditionally used to go to TV channels was also going to internet giants. He said internet had less government control over it.

Two-day Digital Youth Summit opens

He said that system of digital payments was likely to come to Pakistan soon which would bring transparency in the economy.

In his speech, Atif Khan said the provincial government was spending Rs3 billion on training of the youth in IT sector and it would soon announce an additional Rs5 billion for further training of the youth for creation of job opportunities.

He said the provincial government would launch a programme to train 100,000 youth in internet technologies over next two years. He said the government was also setting up citizen facilitation centres for one-window operations to provided basic facilities to public in all districts of the province.

He said the KP government was opening special technology zones in Peshawar, Mardan and Swat.

Chief digital officer, Jazz Pakistan, Aamer Ejaz said that Jazz was committed to fostering a sustainable digital ecosystem in the country.

Minister for finance Taimur Saleem Jhagra also spoke through video link.

A statement issued here said that DYS was Pakistan’s pioneer tech conference that started its journey in 2014. It said that DYS was known for attracting large audiences, both national and international, consisting of youth, tech enthusiasts, academia, industry, governments, investors and members of civil society.

Published in Dawn, November 13th, 2021